


Connections

by lauren6498



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Adventure, Family, Friendship, Mac's twin, Protectiveness, Sisters, Twins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:07:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29474460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauren6498/pseuds/lauren6498
Summary: They only had each other...until DXS. Cara, Mac's twin sister, had been working for DXS alongside the team for years. Dangerous missions, tense situations, and life-threatening moments don't matter much when your family has your back.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	1. The Rise

Chapter 1: The Rise  
(Follows S1E1: The Rising)

“You know, you could always take Nikki to that new French restaurant she’s been talking about.” Cara MacGyver lounged in the passenger seat of the Mercedes, carefully applying the last of her red lipstick. 

“This isn’t the time to talk about this.” Her brother, Angus MacGyver--Mac for short--guided the car through a turn so smoothly that Cara barely even felt it. That was probably why everyone always let Mac drive instead of her.

“We still have a few minutes before we arrive,” she said, shutting her pocket mirror and shifting slightly in the seat to look at her twin. “I’m just saying that you’ve been together for a long time and you’ve told me that you want to live together. Maybe it’s time to have that conversation.”

“What and leave you on the streets? You know I couldn’t do that to my favorite sister.” Mac shot her a grin. 

Cara rolled her eyes. “I’d get the house, of course. Bozer and I need it more.”

Mac sighed as he pulled the car into the courtyard, parking it easily. He pulled out the little box containing their comms for the evening and pulled his out. “This really isn’t the time to talk about this.” 

Cara shrugged as she took the box and put her own earpiece in, fixing her hair around it as Mac got out of the car. Her twin buttoned his tuxedo jacket as he walked around to her side, graciously offering her a hand out of the low-seated car so that no one would get a look up her dress. 

“How do we look?” Mac asked through the comms. He was dressed in a striking black tuxedo with a bowtie (much less prone to getting caught in things than a regular tie). Cara, on the other hand, was dressed in a mid-length deep green gown. It was one of her favorites in the DXS closet and had been dying for the chance to convince Thornton to let her wear it. 

“Yummy,” a female voice said through the comms. Nikki Carpenter...the team’s senior analyst, Cara’s confidant, and Mac’s girlfriend. “You really should wear a tux more often, Mac.” 

“It doesn’t really go with the grease underneath my fingernails.” Mac adjusted the cuffs on his tuxedo while Cara discreetly looked around at the rest of the attendees. 

“Well, if you decide to ditch it...keep the tie,” Nikki added. “I’m sure you’ll find other ways to use it.”

“I’ve already got a couple ideas,” Mac shot back, smiling even though Nikki couldn’t see. Cara fake gagged and elbowed him, skirting just out of the way before he could elbow her back.

“Guys, you know this is an open channel and we can hear you, right?” Jack’s voice came through comms next. Jack Dalton, ex-delta force and total badass with a passion for punching things. Whereas Mac was Cara’s brother by blood, Jack was her brother by choice. 

“I’m more offended that you didn’t mention me, Nikki,” Cara quipped. Mac pulled out a handkerchief and knelt down by the front of the car, acting like he was tying his shoe.

“Don’t worry C, you’re still my favorite MacGyver.” Nikki’s laugh filtered through the comms and Cara stuck her tongue out at Mac when he sent her one of his famous looks. “Mac, what are you doing?”

“Well, I’m going to need a fingerprint to access that safe,” he said as he swiped around the exhaust, balling up the dirty fabric and putting it in his pocket. If Nikki was tech and Jack was muscle, Mac was the brains--always able to find a solution in every situation.

“So, does it bother anyone else that we don’t know exactly what’s in that safe?” Jack asked. He was likely at the dock by then, getting in position for a speedy getaway if needed. 

Mac stood up, offering an elbow to escort Cara as the pair began walking towards the building. It was hard for Cara not to stare and drool at the fancy cars they passed or the beautiful dresses on display. 

“Intel says some weapon the host plans on selling to the highest bidder tonight.” Mac explained, glancing around them. 

“Hundred bucks says it’s nuclear,” Nikki said. Cara could hear the clicking of her keyboard keys in the background of the comms. 

“Look, can we not take bets on what’s probably gonna get us killed?” Jack asked.

Cara laughed softly as Mac responded. “Oh, relax. It couldn’t be worse than Cairo.”

“Hey, hey, we don’t talk about Cairo, remember?” Ah yes...Cairo. The infamous mission that Cara still didn’t know the full story for. 

“What happened in Cairo stays in Cairo,” Nikki added. 

“Sister’s right,” Jack said. “Cairo is off limits, except for my therapist.” 

“You see a therapist?” Cara was just as confused as Nikki. Despite her urging him to get one for years, Jack had always refused. 

“Massage therapist, but she’s a good listener.” Cara fake gagged again, causing Mac to pinch her arm lightly as they approached the door. “Okay, hoss and hossette, you got 30 minutes. After that, I’m crashing the party.”

The knowledge that Jack had their backs no matter what happened inside did make Cara feel better about walking into the middle of a potential arms deal. As it was, she took several steadying breaths as they approached the security checkpoint. 

“See you in 29,” Mac said.

“Sir, madam, one moment please.” One of the security guards stopped Mac with a hand. 

“Do you mind?” A second asked, gesturing to the security wand in the first guard’s hand. 

“Of course.” Mac raised his arms as Cara stepped slightly to the right, smiling lightly at the guards as her brother was searched. The wand beeped and Mac chuckled softly, reaching down into his pocket and pulling out his trusty pocket knife. He passed it over to the guards, “What can I say? Lifelong Boy Scout.” 

Cara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Mac hadn’t been a Boy Scout any longer than she had been in the marching band. But he’d explained his logic of not bringing any weapons by telling her he’d just make one. 

The guards passed the knife around, chuckling, before handing it back to Mac. “Enjoy your party.” 

Mac tucked it into his jacket and pulled out a pair of glasses before offering his elbow to Cara again. No, he didn’t need glasses to see, but it was easier for him to wear a camera that way than with a button or lapel pin. 

The pair walked inside and Cara swept her gaze around the room. Checkered floors, stone columns, and a winding staircase made up the front entryway. People in tuxedos and long dresses milled around while music played in the background, some with plates of appetizers in their hands. 

Seeing a waiter walk by with a tray of delicious looking hors d’oeuvres made Cara’s stomach growl, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast thanks to having to travel for this mission. It took everything in her, plus Mac’s spy-boy attitude at her side, to keep her from snatching the entire tray. 

“All right, guys. We got some serious badassery in here tonight,” Nikki’s voice filtered through the comms again now that they were inside. “Three on the FBI’s Most Wanted, two Interpol. That guy in front of you is linked to four terror networks.”

Cara trailed the man with her eyes, shifting smoothly to watch the woman in the white dress descend the staircase. Patricia Thornton, the head of DXS and their boss. She was a bit of a hardass and Cara was nowhere near as close to her as Nikki, but the two women had formed a solid professional relationship based on mutual respect over the previous year and a half. 

“Mr. Greene, Miss Ludwing,” Thornton greeted as she made it to the bottom of the stairs, extending a hand to Mac. Cara and her twin were masquerading as business partners tonight. They’d long ago decided that going undercover as a couple would absolutely never be on the table, even if it had been suggested once or twice by Thornton. Luckily, the rest of the team was just as put off by the idea as they were. 

“You look lovely this evening, Miss Elcar.” Mac kissed the back of her hand before the both of them reached for flutes of champagne from a passing waitress. Mac handed one to Cara and she sipped it slowly, not wanting to drink too much on an empty stomach and be in anyway buzzed or tipsy for this mission. 

“You both should really take the tour. The art here is magnificent,” Thornton said. 

“Oh, we certainly will,” Cara said, clinking glasses with both Mac and Thornton before each took their own sip. 

Thornton gestured across the room. “That’s the seller.” The man she pointed to was balding and held his own flute of champagne as he talked to two other men. 

“And the vault?” Mac inquired as Cara sized up the men. 

“The door’s behind you.” Thornton nodded towards it and both Mac and Cara glanced over to see a heavily muscled man in front of it.

“I was hoping you weren’t gonna say that.” Mac chuckled. 

“Exfil’s in Vienna,” Thornton said, taking both their glasses of champagne. “See you both in 12 hours. Ciao.” 

“All right Mac, Cara, you’re up,” Nikki said. 

Mac shrugged off his jacket, handing it to Cara as she walked to one of the catering tables near the kitchen door. As she acted intersted in whatever food there was (and she definitely would have been under normal circumstances), Mac took a waiter’s tray and bumped into the seller. A bit of champagne spilled out and, in a flurried bit of Italian, Mac offered him a new glass and took the old flute away.

“When did you learn to speak Italian?” Nikki asked through comms. Cara glanced up as Mac made his way across the room towards the same door.

“When you said yes to Rome,” Mac answered. In a last second decision, Cara half-filled a plate with food right before following Mac through the kitchen doors. 

He grabbed the flute of champagne, emptying it out, and pulled some tape from a drawer as the pair slipped through the kitchen, through another door, and into a small backroom. Cara leaned against the door and shoved a mini cake into her mouth, almost groaning at how good it tasted after such a long day, as Mac got to work on pulling up the finger prints. 

“Are you really eating right now?” Mac asked as he blew some of the exhaust soot he’d picked up onto the glass.

Cara shrugged. “You know how I get when I’m hungry.” 

Mac shook his head as he pulled the fingerprint up with a piece of tape and started rummaging through the shelves, eventually finding a stud finder and pulling out the batteries. “You should be focusing on the mission.”

Cara sighed, talking around the third piece of cake in her mouth when she replied. “Mac, you focus enough for the both of us. Besides, I’m guarding the door while you do your little genius spy-boy stuff.” 

“She’s got a point there, Mac. Not much for us regular folk to do when you’re doing your improv thing,” Jack cut in. “Mind bringing me some food? Man, I’m starving out here.”

“Sorry, man, I just finished the last piece of cake. I’ll buy us some pizza in Vienna before exfil, though,” Cara shrugged, wiping the crumbs off on a napkin on the shelf. “That is, if Mac ever finishes the damn thing he’s working on.” 

“You got yourself a deal,” Jack said as Mac finally finished whatever wire stripping and coiling thing he was doing.

“What is that, Mac?” Cara asked as she set her empty plate down and peeked out the door.

“An electromagnet to take out the guard’s comms long enough for us to sneak in.” 

Once upon a time, Cara might have been surprised to hear something like that. Now, though, she just shrugged and nodded. 

Mac picked up a tray of champagne as the pair snuck back out of the kitchen and split off. Cara took a long way through the room, laying hands on shoulders and going “oh it’s so good to see you again,” to people she had never met before as she watched Mac’s progress. The moment the guard doubled over and stormed off, Cara made her way over the double doors he left free. 

Cara ducked through first, with Mac following after handing some champagne to two party goers, as Nikki’s voice came through the comms. “Jack, you got some company.”

“Hey, is this George Clooney’s house?” Jack asked as an angry Italian voice grew louder in the background. “Quick selfie for the girlfriend. Here we go. Right there. Smile.” 

Cara couldn’t focus on the rest of whatever Jack was doing as she made her way through the halls behind Mac. They entered a room full of sitting areas, books, and paintings. It would have been something to stop and gawk at if they weren’t on a time crunch.

“The art here is magnificent,” Mac remarked as he set the tray down on a table and looked around the room. As Cara waited by the door, ears tuned to the hallway, Mac walked over to the large painting on the opposite wall. 

Within moments, he had turned it to where a second, secret room was revealed...just big enough for one person. 

“Uh, Nikki, are you seeing this?” Mac asked through the comms, pausing as he looked down. Cara made her way over to where he stood and cursed softly.

“Yeah. Full handprint biometrics. We got bad intel,” Nikki answered. “That print you lifted is useless.” 

“So, uh, what’s plan B?” Jack asked.

“Same as always. Improvise,” Mac said, walking back into the main room. “Cara, I’m gonna need you to watch my six. Nikki, keep an eye out for both of us.”

“Always do,” Nikki said.

“Why don’t you ever flirt with me like that?” Jack asked. Cara took up her former position at the door’s entryway, keeping a steady ear trained on the sounds around them.

“Cause I don’t have a daddy fixation,” Nikki quipped back. 

There was a pause on comms as Cara snorted before Jack replied. “Fair enough.”

Cara watched Mac as he scraped some plaster off the wall, dumping it onto the scanner, and then pressed his covered hand on top of that. 

“There’s no way that’s going to---oh,” Cara cut herself off as the scanner clicked, signally that her twin’s plan had, in fact, worked. 

He pulled open the safe door and walked in, disappearing from Cara’s sight briefly. Moments later, his voice came back through the comms. “Well, it’s not nuclear.”

“That’s good,” Nikki said. Her background keyboard clicking intensified and Cara cast another glance around the hall.

“It looks biological.” 

“That’s not good.” It was Jack who spoke that time. 

It was another few moments of silence before an alarm started going off followed by Mac’s, “Oops.” 

“Oops? Oops like I just stubbed my toe? Or oops like I may have just started the zombie apocalypse?” Jack asked as Cara dashed over the safe. Mac had a canister in his hands but there were red lights flashing along with the alarms.

“Mac, Cara, get out of there now!” Nikki ordered. 

They made it back to the hallway right as a guard rounded the corner with a gun. Mac pulled Cara back into the room, grabbing the silver serving tray pulling her behind him again right as the guard caught up. Mac deflected the bullets with the tray, thank god, and ran up to him, kicking him in the knee before hitting him across the face with it. A second guard came into the room, pulling out two guns, and started shooting at them. Mac jumped over the back of the couch as Cara ducked back into the vault room. She grabbed some heavy metal looking thing from one of the stands--hey, the alarms were already going off it didn’t matter--and shot it right at the guard’s head the moment he ran out of ammo, knocking him straight out. If Nikki was tech, Jack was muscle, and Mac was brains...then Cara was a little bit of everything. 

Mac grabbed the canister and the pair sprinted down the hallway and shoved their way through to the exit as guards started pursuing them. There was a reason Cara had chosen the mid-length gown and it had everything to do with the ability to run. 

A new guard cut across their path but a quick kick from Cara had him eating gravel. She and Mac sprinted down the stairs as guns started firing at them, eliciting screams from all the party goers nearby.

“Jack, start the boat!” Cara yelled as they ran towards the dock.

“Start the damn boat!” Mac yelled a lot louder than Cara. The pair jumped into the boat right as Jack had it started, breathing heavily. “Go, go go!” 

They sped off on the water but, soon, a second boat was pursuing them---a boat full of armed guards shooting at them. Cara was really questioning why every career she chose involved people shooting at her. 

The engine started sputtering before Jack went, “I think we got a problem here, Mac, check it out!” 

Mac dashed to the back of the boat to see what had happened. “They hit our fuel line!” 

“So, break out the chewing gum,” Jack said. Cara started rummaging through the various nooks and crannies of the boat, almost smiling when she found a handgun. 

“Even I know it’s gonna take more than chewing gum to fix, Jack,” Cara cut in. 

“We’re going to be out of fuel in about 45 seconds.” Mac gripped the windshield as he shook his head. “Here, hold this.” He held out the canister to Jack.  
“No!” 

“This really is Cairo all over again.” Mac was yelling and Cara was just wondering in the back of her head why she’d agreed to this mission in the first place. 

“Hey, Cairo was your fault, man,” Jack quipped as he started shooting back at their pursuers. Honestly, even in certain-death situations the two of them would argue like an old married couple. It would have been funny if Cara wasn’t so worried about the watery grave that was waiting for them if they failed. She started firing back at their pursuers but the gun she had found didn’t have much ammo and had to be reset between every shot. 

“Hold this and get out of my way!” Mac shoved the canister into Jack’s hands and pushed him out of the way. 

“Whatever you’re gonna do, do it fast!” Jack ordered as he joined Cara at the back of the boat. Cara ran out of ammo and gestured that she would take the canister as Jack began shooting again.

The boat went dark, Mac no doubt having cut the power, and Cara tensed as he started turning the boat around. 

“Why are we going back?” Jack asked.

“We’re not!” Mac yelled back as he undid his bowtie and tied it around the wheel and something she couldn’t see. It was only at that moment Cara realized she had left his tuxedo jacket somewhere she couldn’t remember. 

Mac rushed to the back of the boat, pushing Cara and Jack towards the edge as he took the canister back. “Jump!” 

“What?” Jack was too late, though, as Mac had already jumped into the black water. Jack followed milliseconds later. There was a brief hesitation on Cara’s part, mostly due to the fact she hated open water where she couldn’t see what was coming, before she joined the two in the frigid water.

Less than ten seconds later, an explosion lit up the lake as their boat ran into their pursuers, causing waves to ripple towards them. 

“Mac?” Jack yelled out, sounding miles away from Cara with the water in her ears. 

“I’m good! Cara?!” Mac’s voice rang out, sounding even farther than Jack’s.

“Right here!” She managed to get it out on the second time, struggling to kick her shoes off as they kept pulling her down. Wedge heels were better for running than stilettos but they definitely weren’t better for swimming. 

“Swim to shore!” Mac ordered both of them and Cara spun around in the water, trying to find which way shore was. 

Thankfully, she found she was the closest to shore and was standing there shivering and waiting when Mac and Jack got back. 

Cara punched Mac in the shoulder. “That’s for making me lose my favorite shoes.”

Mac swung an arm around her, “Nah, DXS bought those for you for this mission just today.”

The three of them jogged through the treeline and up to the stretch of road alongside the water where Nikki was waiting with the van. Even though Cara’s feet got a bit scraped up, running did ward off the chill from being wet. 

By the time they got back to the van, all three were chuckling. Mac swung the back door of the van open and coughed. “Nikki.”

It was empty.

“Nikki?” Mac called out. Nikki slowly appeared from behind the van’s open door. 

“Nikki?” Cara repeated. Her friend looked scared. And then the gun appeared. 

Jack had his gun drawn and pointed at the man before he was even fully revealed while Cara moved closer to Mac, hand inching towards the blade she kept strapped to her thigh at all times on missions.

“I’m sorry. I…” Nikki cut off as the man put her in a headlock and pointed the gun at her head.

“The canister, please.” He had an accent and his head was shaved on the sides. Cara knew this was a face that Jack was just dying to punch.

“You let her go.” Mac pointed at Nikki. 

“That’s not how these exchanges work, Mr. MacGyver.” Cara couldn’t reach the knife without hiking up her dress and alerting whoever this man was to her intentions. “You hand over the canister, and I will let your friend live.” 

“Don’t do it, Mac,” Jack ordered. Cara felt helpless. Unable to draw a weapon, unable to help Nikki, unable to make the tough decisions for her twin. A second, masked man came out of nowhere and hit Jack on the back of the head, knocking him unconscious. 

“Give it to me and nobody else will get hurt.” The man holding Nikki released her from the headlock but kept the gun pointed at her while he moved towards Mac.

“Maybe I drop this right now, we all die.” Mac was bluffing. He wouldn’t put Nikki in danger anymore than he would have put Cara in danger. It was something Cara knew for certain. And that was something their gunman knew as well. 

“You won’t kill her, but I will,” he threatened. 

Cara’s heart jumped to her throat. Not Nikki. Not the closest friend she’d ever had outside of Mac. 

“Don’t give it to him, Mac,” Nikki pleaded right before the man hit her across the face with the gun.

“You son of a bitch!” Mac yelled, stepping forward a half-step.

“You think I’m playing?” The other man yelled back. Cara was tense, side-eying the masked man who had a gun trained on her and Mac. “The canister. I will not ask you again.”  
Mac placed it in his outstretched hand despite Nikki shaking her head and Cara instantly knew it was a mistake. 

“Thank you,” he said right before turning and shooting Nikki in the chest, causing her to fall backwards off the road.

“No!” Both Mac and Cara yelled it at the same time. Mac lunged for Nikki whereas Cara saw the masked gunman start to move from behind and threw herself in front of Mac’s back, not even seeing the other man shoot Mac in the front.

Cara screamed as Mac fell off the side of the overpass and down towards the water, unmoving when he landed. She whirled, knife drawn, and lunged for him before a bullet in her own chest pulled her towards the water below.

She hit the water hard. Hard enough that whatever breath hadn’t been knocked out of her by the bullet had been by the landing. She couldn’t move, couldn’t swim to the surface when she started to sink, couldn’t think past the pain and her inability to even breath. 

Her twin was terrified of heights...but Cara? Cara was terrified of drowning. Getting shot in the chest but dying by drowning first seemed like a cruel joke to her as the water grew darker to lower she sank. She couldn’t even struggle towards the surface, just watch the light vanish. 

An arm wrapped around her waist and she was yanked upward painfully. She gasped for air as they surfaced but that only intensified the agony in her chest. 

“I got you, C. I got you,” Mac whispered as they floated. She couldn’t even move, couldn’t even talk to let him know how much pain she was in. All she could do was gasp and groan. 

Mac tugged them towards shore, supporting Cara the entire way. By the time they could stand, Cara was half-unconscious and her knees buckled the moment the water was low enough to no longer support the majority of her weight. 

“Cara?” Mac’s alarmed voice broke through the haze in her mind. Her twin came around to her front and cursed, catching her as she fell forward and almost face-planted on the shore.

He pulled her up out of the water as another voice rang out. “Mac? Cara?” 

“Down here!” Mac’s voice was full of pain but Cara couldn’t decipher through her pain if it was from Nikki or his gunshot wound. 

Jack skidded down the slope and came to a stop on the other side of Cara. “That’s not good.”

“We gotta get to a hospital,” Mac said through gritted teeth as he tore a strip off the bottom of Cara’s dress. She didn’t have the willpower to speak or else she would have told him the wet fabric wasn’t going to do much against a bullet wound. Everything else faded from focus as he pressed it tight against her wound, wrenching a scream as the pain got worse.

Everything was in and out of focus from then. Cara barely noticed Mac and Jack carrying her between them back up the van. There was a van ride where Mac was pulling things out of the first aid kid while Jack drove and yelled at someone through the phone. Then there was bright white hospital lights and fuzzy shapes walking around her. Cara remembered refusing to let go of Mac’s hand as she was laid on something firm but soft before a pinch in her arm caused everything to go black. 

\---

The beeping was the first thing Cara noticed when she awoke. The second was the IV lines. She’d been in enough hospitals to know what those felt like. And the third, when she finally opened her eyes, was her brother asleep in a plastic chair, head tilted back against the wall while he snored softly.

“Mac,” she said. Well, she tried to anyway before devolving into a fit of coughing. Her throat was dry and scratchy and sore. The coughing did wake up her brother, though.

He was by the bed in an instant, reaching for a small paper cup from the stand and giving it to her. When she couldn’t lift it without her hands shaking, Mac took it back and helped her take a sip. When her throat had finally been soothed and Cara had relaxed back into the pillow, Mac took a seat on the edge of the bed. 

“What happened? Where am I?” she rasped out. So maybe talking would take some getting used to. 

“You’re in a hospital in LA. Two weeks ago, we were both shot.” Mac rubbed at a part of his chest where Cara vaguely remembered him getting shot. 

“Wait...we were in Italy,” Cara shook her head, trying to get the flashes of memory straight. “Did you say two weeks?” 

“You almost didn’t make it,” Mac swallowed roughly, casting his gaze out the window. “You were on life support for a few days in the ICU, then another few days in a medically induced coma for recovery before the doctors said you were okay to travel on a medical transport to LA. We got back yesterday.” 

A memory rushed back to the surface through all the rest. “Nikki?” 

Mac didn’t look at her when he replied. “Dead.”

Cara’s heart seemed to stop, though she knew from the heart monitor that it was actually the exact opposite. Nikki...her best friend...her confidant...her future sister...dead? 

She shook her head, blinking back tears as her throat grew tight. “No...no that’s not...no. You’re wrong.”

“Her funeral was a week ago.” Mac took a steadying breath. “She’s gone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all. I'm pretty new to the MacGyver fandom but became absolutely obsessed and just finished catching up to the most recent episode. I tried my hand at writing a fanfic and have a lot of it planned out so if you'd like to read more, please leave a review! - Lauren


	2. The Reveal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Follows the second half of S1E1: The Rising

**Chapter 2: The Reveal**

(Follows S1E1: The Rising)

Recovery was a long trek. Between the emotional distress of losing her best friend and the physical toll of being shot, Cara was not having an easy month. It took a week after waking up for Cara to even be discharged. During the day, Mac never left her side, at least not for long stretches, and Jack or Bozer were there when he did. 

Cara had managed to pry some more information out of Jack--Mac had refused to talk about it--and discovered that they hadn’t even found Nikki’s body yet. A small kernel of hope grew in her chest before she realized Nikki would have called by then. Luckily Mac had been gone for the night by the time she cried herself to sleep. 

The first week being back home was challenging. Cara wasn’t able to move without help from Mac or Bozer, which made going to the bathroom an awkward experience. Her meals had to be delivered to her on the couch or her bed or wherever she was being smothered in blankets at that time. Mac went into overprotective mode, which was endearing for approximately five minutes before she coughed and he was asking her a million questions about how she felt. 

The second week back home, she could walk and get food on her own. Cara practically had to physically shoo Mac and Bozer away from her whenever she did something around the house by herself. They got the hint enough to at least pretend that they weren’t hovering anymore even if they really were. 

On the third week home Cara felt like she was going to go insane. She’d already watched through the entire series of Bones and read every book Bozer had picked up for her the day she got back. She was aching to get back to running or surfing or even just going outside the house for extended periods of time. Mac refused to take her even for a walk through the neighborhood until she was cleared by a doctor (and then caught her the many times she tried to sneak out anyway). 

It wasn’t until the end of week four being home that Cara finally got the okay from her doctor to go for short walks (though she didn’t tell Mac that). Finally, on week five, she got Mac to take her for a run.

“You’re sure your doctor okay-ed this?” Mac asked for the umpteenth time since they arrived at the neighborhood park. He had been smart enough to refuse their regular running spot in Griffith Park and instead insisted on the flat, even sidewalks that formed a circle through their neighborhood. 

“Yes, Angus, I’m sure.” Cara was lacing up her sneakers on the bench near the playground while her brother hovered beside her. “I’m all good to go for exercise, though he did say we have to revisit jumping out of planes or dodging bullets in a few weeks.” 

“And you’re sure you’re feeling up to this?” 

Cara rolled her eyes, turning to face her twin. There was nothing but concern, and a bit of guilt, on his face. She softened. 

“I’m up for it if you are,” Cara offered with a small smile. 

Mac studied her for a moment--he was always the only one who could tell when she lied--and finally nodded. “Fine, but if you feel bad at all just tell me and we’ll stop.” 

She gave a mock salute and started lightly jogging towards the sidewalk, Mac quickly falling into step beside her. The truth was that she had been out of action with a serious injury for so long that she wasn’t sure where her cardio was at. The only way to find out, though, was to test it running. 

It was less than a mile before Cara was struggling to keep pace with Mac and panting like she was back in tenth grade. The worst part was that she knew they were way below their usual pace and Mac was slowing himself way down so as to not lose her. 

Cara made it to the mile marker before she bent over, breathing in gulps of air. Mac’s hand settled on her shoulder as he knelt down, concern in his eyes. 

“What’s wrong? Is it your chest? Are you in pain?”

She waved her twin off, standing up and shaking out her calves as a wave of disappointment settled on her shoulders. “I’m fine. My cardio just isn’t where it was before Italy.” 

“Let’s go home. I can run back quickly and get the car to pick you up,” Mac said, turning towards home. “Or I think Bozer’s home--maybe he can bring it.” 

Cara stepped forward, placing both her hands on Mac’s shoulders. 

“I’m okay, little brother. I just can’t run like I used to, which is not really a surprise as the doc said I shouldn’t do more than walk.” 

“I knew you were lying about what the doctor--wait, I’m older than you!” Mac shook his head and flicked her in the forehead before she could duck out of the way. 

“Only by four minutes,” Cara shrugged, stepping back and stretching her legs. “I’d like to walk home, though. Gotta start rebuilding somewhere, right?” 

“Just walking?” Mac raised his eyebrows and it took everything in Cara not to laugh at how ridiculous he looked giving her that look. 

“Just walking.” Cara held out her pinky. “I pinky promise.” 

Mac sighed, locking his pinky with hers as if they were still kids. “Let’s go then. I told Bozer we’d be back by ten.”

Three months later, post-Italy, and Cara realized it wasn’t her physical recovery that hampered her. It was the flashes of time where she thought of something and turned to tell Nikki only to realize she wasn’t there. It was the memes she found during breakfast and texted to her best friend subconsciously before finding out that phone number was assigned to a new person. It was the guilt from knowing that she walked away from the mission when Nikki didn’t. The last one was the one that made her cry herself to sleep the most. 

Mac and Cara danced around the subject. She didn’t want to bring up how much she was struggling anymore than Mac no doubt wanted to keep her in the dark on his own issues with it. Cara had lost a best friend but Mac had lost a best friend and his love in front of his eyes. 

Cara was pounding away on the punching bag in her room (something she had to negotiate heavily with Mac when he found out she wanted to put holes in the ceiling) when she heard the front door open and Mac’s voice filter through the house.

“Hey! Just in time, roomie.” It was Bozer who talked next. “I’m making waffles.” 

“You know you don’t have to do this every day.” There was a thump before Mac continued. “I’m okay.”

“You say you’re okay, Cara says she’s okay, but you’re both not okay, all right?” At the mention of her name, Cara stopped kicking the bag and just stood there listening. “Your girlfriend dies in a car accident while on a business trip, the same car accident that put your twin sister in the hospital...you can’t tell me you’re okay.” 

A twinge of pain hit in the same spot as the bullet at the mention of Nikki. Car accident...the cover story they’d had to tell Bozer. Cara had advocated for telling him what they really did for years but she was always shut down by Mac and, more importantly, Thornton. 

“Eat your waffles,” Bozer ordered. 

Cara tuned out the rest of their conversation (something to do with Bozer’s film he was working on) and instead focused back in on her kickboxing workout. She’d been out of action for almost two months and wasn’t even back to half her regular level of fitness in the month since she’d started back on her workouts. Mac was doing way better healing from his own injury (the perks of not having to spend weeks in the hospital) and had taken to running their old trail on his own for now. 

A few minutes later, Cara heard the front door slam shut as Bozer left for his work shift and a dish clattering in the sink. It was the same routine as always. Mac would protest over the waffles but end up scarfing them down anyway. Cara herself had taken to hiding out in her room whenever Bozer was making them. She’d never had so many waffles in her life.

Cara slid her headphones in for the last half of her workout and paced herself through the audio-guided moves. Sweat dripped from her forehead and her breathing picked up as she forced herself to work harder, to hit faster. 

A hand landed on her shoulder and Cara immediately reacted, twisting it around and flipping both of them to the ground until Cara had them pinned down on their back. Mac let out a sigh and twisted as much as he could to give her an unamused look. 

“Just me, C.” 

Cara let go of the hold and stood back up. “Sorry, I didn’t know it was you.”

“It’s fine,” Mac waved her off as he stood. “Thornton’s in the living room. Something about a new mission, I suppose.”

Cara’s throat tightened but she nodded, following Mac back through the house to where Thornton was indeed standing by the dining room table. 

“Cara, you look good,” Thornton greeted. 

Cara gave her boss a nod. “I feel...good.” It wasn’t a lie. Physically, Cara was feeling great compared to a month prior. 

“I heard you were cleared for duty.” Thornton walked closer to where she stood. She and Mac must have already exchanged their own small talk.

“Uh, yeah,” Cara nodded, swiping her hair back from her face. “Is that what this is about?” 

“Vacation’s over. It’s time to get to work.” As Thornton set down a tablet on the table, Cara snagged a glass of water from the sink before joining the other two to watch it. 

“Yesterday at 5:07 pm local time, technicians for the Nargaard research facility in Greenland sent out an S.O.S.”

Cara studied the video intently as a technician begged for help while everyone in the background looked to be coughing to death. She exchanged a look with Mac. This didn’t sound good. 

“Ten minutes later, all 27 researchers were dead,” Thornton continued. “The CDC sent out a containment team to quarantine the building, figure out what happened.”

“Well, looks like Ebola,” Mac said, “or some sort of viral hemorrhagic fever. But they never had any cases in Greenland. Is this something new?”

“Try something old,” Thornton said. “30,000 years old. The CDC thinks it’s prehistoric...something they dug up while fracking in Siberia. We believe this virus is the biological weapon that you were sent to Italy to recover three months ago.”

Cara sat down hard on the edge of the table as Mac’s face flickered through a range of emotions. Their robbery--and Nikki’s subsequent death--had led to the deaths of at least twenty-seven people, if not more. 

“Intel suggests this was a proof of concept demonstration to prove that the seller was actually in possession of the biologic,” Thornton continued. “Up until now, the man who stole the virus from you…”

“You mean the man who killed Nikki,” Mac interrupted, staring at the floor. 

“We’ve been trying to find him, assuming that he was the end user.” Thornton was pacing a hole in their hardwood floor. “But this latest intel suggests that he was just another broker looking to make a sale.”

“Any idea when or where?” Cara cut in, speaking for the first time since Thornton had begun briefing them. 

“No.” Thornton shook her head. 

“Well, if we can’t find him, we need to find the buyer,” Mac said. “Nikki downloaded everything from that night onto her hard drive. The face of every guest at that party. That’s our list of potential buyers.”

“I already have our cyber team processing her computer.” Thornton faced the both of them. “Cara, I know you’re still not 100% and Mac, I know you asked for some time, but this requires somebody who can handle a biologic. The clock’s ticking. We need you both.”

Mac and Cara exchanged a glance, faces grave. This was a chance not only to get a deadly virus off the black market but, more importantly, find the man responsible for Nikki’s death. 

“All right, I’m in,” Cara said first. Thornton looked at Mac and the only thing he did was nod. 

“Meet at DXS in thirty minutes.” Their boss shut the front door with barely a sound and the twins were left facing each other.

“I don’t want you on this one,” Mac said the moment the door was shut. “You’re still recovering.”

Cara’s first instinct was to stand up and push back against the assumption that she couldn’t do it...but she’d learned enough over the last two and a half months of recovery to know when Mac was just being overprotective. 

“If we’re going to go that route, then I don’t want you on this one either,” Cara said softly. “You were shot, too. And what’s not to say the man who put a bullet in both of us won’t try to finish the job?”

Mac was silent, muscle in his jaw jumping as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. Cara pulled him in for a hug, waiting until he reciprocated before continuing.

“We can’t let Italy dictate the rest of our lives. This is our job, Angus, and you’re going to have to be okay with me going back at some point just as I have to be okay with you doing the same.” 

“Fine,” Mac sighed. “You definitely need to take a shower before we leave, though.”

After the quickest shower ever and Cara had scarfed down a burrito in the car with her hair still dripping, they were back at DXS. Jack was waiting by the front door and pulled Cara into a hug when they finally cleared security.

“Bring it in, lil mama,” he said. She’d seen Jack since Italy, but not as much in the last month when they’d all begun training harder and longer to get back into mission-ready shape. Jack pulled Mac into a hug next, slapping her brother on the back. 

“Yeah, man, it’s good to be back,” Jack exclaimed as they walked into DXS. “Patti, bring it in.” Jack went in for a hug on the less-than-amused Thornton. 

“Director Thornton,” she stated. “And human resources is still on the third floor in case you need a refresher.”

Cara had to hide the snort of laughter at Thornton’s response to Jack. She’d never really warmed to the ex-delta force member. 

Jack backed off, looking properly chastised. “No, I’m...I’m good with that.” 

“Nikki’s laptop give us anything?” Cara asked, watching a tech type away in the back of the van in evidence. 

“Not yet. We hit a wall of encryption that even our guys can’t crack,” Thornton explained. 

“She was good,” Mac said, stepping towards the hanging partition with his eyes locked on the computer.

“So good. But I think we’re gonna burn through the window we have to stop the sale.” Thornton didn’t sound very happy.

“Mm, maybe not,” Jack cut in, all business now that they’d started discussing the mission. He walked around Mac to get a closer look at the computer. “Maybe not.”

“Care to elaborate?” Thornton asked.

Even Cara wasn’t sure what Jack could do about an encrypted laptop.

“Yeah, uh, but you’re not going to like it, Director Thornton.” Jack turned around to look at the director. 

A moderate drive to the prison and enough time for Cara’s hair to finish drying later and they were standing in an observation room, looking through to where a woman was handcuffed at a table. 

“This is the young lady that’s supposed to be as good as Nikki?” Thornton’s voice was skeptical, but Cara was studying the girl through the glass. 

“Jack,” Mac said, flipping open the girl’s file, “there’s nothing here but black marker.”

Cara raised her eyebrow, looking at the file--or what was left of it--over Mac’s shoulder.

“Which means it’s one hell of a resume, am I right?” Jack sounded sure. 

Thornton grabbed the file from Mac, flipping through it a few times before looking at Jack and jerking her head towards the glass. “And how do you know her?” Thornton held up a hand before Jack could answer. “You know, I don’t want to know.”

“So, can you help us?” Mac asked. He was seated across from Riley Davis, the girl they’d come to see. Jack and Cara were leaning against the wall next to the table during their conversation. Of course, Cara zoned out a bit in the middle of Mac’s spiel, tired from lack of sleep the night before. 

Riley turned towards Jack, seeming to ignore Mac’s proposal, and raised her eyebrows. “Is there anything you want to say to me?”

Jack shrugged. “You help us out, I’ll put in a good word with the judge.” 

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Riley did not look happy and Cara scooted a few inches away from Jack, not wanting to be involved in whatever history those two had.

“A reduced sentence. That should wipe the slate clean between us,” Jack countered. 

“No it doesn’t--” Riley was glaring at him now but, before she could go any further, Mac interrupted. 

“Look, whatever’s going on between you two, can we put it aside right now? We have a serious problem, and, Riley, we could use your help.” Mac looked back and forth between the other two. Cara almost wished she were in the viewing room with Thornton so that she wouldn’t have to feel the tension that was thick in the air. 

“What exactly do you do, Mr. MacGyver?” Riley asked, focusing fully back on Mac. Cara snorted slightly at the formal title even though she knew it wasn’t a sign of respect. Nobody had called Mac mister as long as she could remember unless he was in trouble. 

Mac smiled. “You know how you hack computers? Well, I hack everything else.” 

Cara rolled her eyes at his dramatics as Riley looked over at Jack again. “I thought you said you sold bathroom tile.”

Jack uncrossed his arms. “Do I look like I sell bathroom tile?” 

“No,” Riley shook her head. “You don’t look that smart.”

Both Cara and Mac snorted at that, drawing Riley’s attention back from Jack.

“When we met, I was CIA,” Jack said, drawing up a second chair to the table and sitting backwards on it. “The people I work for now, the CIA doesn’t even know they exist.”

“So you’re DXS?” Riley gave a smirk as she figured it out. Cara smiled from her place against the wall as Mac and Jack shared a look.

“I told you she was good,” Jack muttered. 

“I need to ask you something,” Mac said. “Are you guilty of the crimes that put you in here?”

Both Mac and Riley leaned closer, falling back into a serious mood.

“Mr. MacGyver, have you ever done anything to help someone, knowing it might hurt you?” Riley asked. “Well, that’s why I’m here. Yes, I am guilty. And if I had to do it all over again, I would.”

Cara had to admit that she was impressed. Riley seemed like a badass and someone smart enough to fit in with them easily. 

“Good,” Mac smiled. “You’re coming with us.”

“Seriously?” Riley looked between all three of them. Cara simply nodded when Riley’s gaze landed on her. 

“You have a unique skill set we can utilize,” Cara said for the first time since introducing herself, walking over towards the table between Jack and Mac. 

“Is it going to be dangerous?” Riley’s voice seemed to gain some excitement as she asked. 

“Our last analyst was murdered three months ago,” Mac admitted. A pang of sadness shot through Cara’s chest at the mention of Nikki. 

“Not the most ideal recruitment slogan,” Riley said. 

“What, you think it’s gonna be any easier for you in here?” Jack asked. 

“I’ll take it over coffee with you any day.” Riley and Jack must have had some bad history for her to be so antagonistic towards him, Cara thought.

“I don’t even drink coffee,” Jack gestured to himself, letting her rile him up.

Mac waved a hand between them. “Hey. You two are on time-out from now on.”

“If I help you, I want a reduced sentence.” Riley turned back to Mac. “Like, zero days. And access to tech. Unsupervised.”

Jack scoffed as Mac shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

Cara nudged his foot under the table. They could make that happen...if they had to.

“DXS can move Christmas,” Riley countered. 

“I’m not making any promises.” 

“And if I say no?” Riley asked. Cara looked down at the table as Mac leaned over, placing his hands over hers.

“Ms. Davis,” Mac started. “You already said you’re the kind of person who would do the right thing. So, you can spend the next five years in a five-by-six hole wishing you had said yes, or you can do the right thing now and thank me later.” 

Mac pulled the cuffs off, having undone them while everyone was focused on his speech. Cara smiled slightly as he held up a paperclip. Mac was always so dramatic. 

“So, what’s it gonna be?” he asked. 

Riley slowly smiled. “Alright, I’m in.” 

They left the cell, Riley and Mac in front with Jack and Cara trailing them. 

“Are you insane?” Thornton asked as they made it to the hallway. “This was supposed to be an interview, not a jailbreak.”

“Oh, you know how this works. I use the tools around me. This woman just happens to be the one I need to succeed in this mission.” Mac pulled everyone to a stop. “Or, if you prefer, we can let a 30,000 year old weaponized virus kill everyone on the planet.”

Cara and Jack exchanged a look at Mac’s boldness towards their boss, who said nothing.

“I didn’t think so,” Mac said, stalking down the hallway again. 

By the time they made it back to DXS, Cara was yawning heavily, even having fallen asleep on the car ride back despite everyone else filling in Riley on the situation. If she’d known Thornton was going to drag them back in today, she wouldn’t have done such a heavy workout that morning after having gotten no sleep the night before.

“Never seen encryption like this before,” a forensics tech said, sitting on the edge of the van and fiddling with the computer. Thornton, Mac, Riley, Jack, and Cara were all standing around watching. “I’ve been trying to extract her private key but this thing has more logic bombs in it than Stuxnet. I mean, if we’re not super careful, we could easily destroy--”

He was cut off by Riley grabbing a hammer and slamming it down on the laptop. Everybody recoiled as the tech shouted, “Whoa, whoa! What the hell are you doing?” 

Riley held up a piece of the laptop. “Why interrogate the prisoner when you can just look inside her brain?”

Everyone exchanged a look and Cara tried to hide her smile. She really liked Riley. 

“We’ll scan the data as read-only, then search the disk image to extract the key,” Riley said, pulling apart the component in her hand. 

“Bypassing all the logic bombs,” the tech finished.

“I thought you said this was gonna be hard,” Riley was smirking as she turned to Mac, who just chuckled. 

In just a few minutes, all the data was pulled up from Nikki’s computer and the five of them gathered around a desk in the evidence garage. Riley pulled up a video of the party from Mac’s glasses and Cara swallowed hard at the visual memories of that night. 

“Facial recognition could take a few minutes,” Riley said. “You guys got anything to eat?” 

“After you’re done,” Thornton said before Cara could finish rummaging through her jacket pocket for the granola bar she’d stashed there that morning. 

Riley frowned. “You three suck.”

“Are you really not gonna be talking to me?” Jack asked, causing Riley to turn to him and give him a look.

“Jack,” Mac warned, repeating himself with a slightly harsher tone. “Jack.” 

Jack paced a few steps away and Mac followed while Cara slid closer to the computer screen, taking in the faces of the people who had been there that night as she slid the granola bar onto the table beside Riley’s keyboard. The other woman looked up at her, giving her a surprised smile, and tucked the granola bar under the desk before Thornton took up Jack’s vacated spot on the other side. 

The computer started making a beeping sound and a bunch of facial recognition results pulled up on the screen, one after the other. 

“All right, secret agents,” Riley turned to call over to Mac and Jack. “Gather around. I got your jam.”

Mac took up a spot next to Cara, leaning over to look closer at the results while Jack stood behind them. 

“This is the background of all the buyers that Nikki recorded,” Thornton said, pointing through them all.

“Son of a bitch was at the party.” Mac’s voice was rough as he pointed at an image result of the same man who had shot them. Cara took a deep breath, rubbing absentmindedly at her gunshot wound through her shirt. 

“You guys don’t remember seeing him?” Jack asked. Cara couldn’t remember most of the people in that video, let alone if she’d seen him in the crowds. 

“There was a lot of people.” Mac braced his hands on the table. “He must have slipped out before we got into the safe.”

“Who is he?” Riley asked, studying the picture on the screen. 

“That’s the guy who shot Mac and Cara and killed our friend Nikki,” Jack said, stepping closer as he glanced over at the twins. Cara hadn’t stopped looking at the man’s face since it had been pulled up.

Mac let out a sigh, looking tense, as Thornton started talking. “His name is John Kendrick. Can you find him?”

“According to this, the guy’s on eight watch lists,” Riley said. “If he’s still in the wind at this point, I highly doubt we’re gonna be able…”

“Can you zoom in on his left wrist?” Mac interrupted, pointing at the screen. Cara backed up slightly to allow her brother closer access to it. 

Riley started tapping away as Jack asked, “what do you see, Mac?” 

“Time zone,” Mac said as Riley enlarged an image of Kendrick’s watch. “His watch is set to nine hours earlier.” 

“The west coast of the US is nine hours earlier than Lake Como,” Thornton said, leaning closer. 

“I might be able to find him using a Shodan Map,” Riley said, tapping away at the keyboard. 

“See? I told you she was good.” Jack slapped Mac’s shoulder before placing his hands on his hips. “What-what’s a...what’s a Shodan Map?”

“A map of every digital device connected to the Internet.” Riley answered, not looking up from the keyboard as she did so. “Using this, I can access every traffic cam, ATM cam and unsecured surveillance cam on the West Coast.” 

Everyone aside from Cara gave Riley unsettled looks at that. Cara had already learned about that from an old army friend and it had taken weeks to stop looking over her shoulder at every turn. 

“Is that real? Doesn’t sound real,” Jack said quietly, exchanging a look with Mac behind Cara’s back.

“I’m inputting Kendrick’s photo and running an image search,” Riley said. Cara looked down at the table as images started scrolling across the screen, taking a deep breath. Mac’s hand gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Of course he was the only one who noticed her struggling with the whole thing.

Kendrick’s face popped up and the computer beeped.

“Got him,” Riley said, enlarging a video. “He’s in San Francisco. This feed is live.” 

Thornton’s eyes widened as she leaned forward and pointed at another man. “He’s not the only one there. Look, there’s Benjamin Chen. He was one of the potential buyers. Last whereabouts: San Francisco.” 

Jack squeezed his way between everyone to get a closer look. “Interesting. Benny boy’s a Chinese national. Former military. This charmer was disavowed by his own government and has an incredibly documented hatred for all things Uncle Sam. Guy sounds  _ lovely _ .” 

“You said this is a live feed,” Thornton cut in. “Can you follow him?” 

Riley tapped away quickly before another video angle popped up.

“If Kendrick is in California to meet Chen, that means we only have a few hours,” Thornton said, drawing her gaze from the screen to look at Jack, Mac, and Cara. “You have to get there and stop the sale.”

“What about me?” Riley asked, turning slightly to look at them.

“Your work here is done.”

“So what? You drop me off at the gift shop, then take me back to prison?” Riley didn’t sound happy. To be fair, Cara didn’t think it was that great of a deal either.

“I’d like her to come with us,” Jack said. 

“And I’d like to see you wear a clean shirt, but unfortunately we can’t always get what we want,” Thornton shot back. 

“All due respect, ma’am, we do need a new field analyst,” Cara cut in. 

“She’s a hacker.” 

“Titles really don’t matter to me,” Riley said, holding up her hands in a surrendering way. 

“She’s our responsibility until this is all over,” Mac added. 

“And if the virus is released, we’re all gonna die anyway.” Jack, ever the optimist. “So I mean...what’s the big deal?”

“All right, since we’re gonna die anyway...get yourselves to San Francisco,” Thornton ordered, walking off. 

The four agents looked at each other before getting into action.

“Riley, I have a spare change of clothes you can wear. You’ll have to change on the plane, though,” Cara said as they walked out of the evidence lockup. 

“And I’m gonna grab some food for the plane ride for us,” Jack added, dashing off quickly to find snacks who knows where. 

Within ten minutes, they were all situated on the DXS jet and ready to take off for San Francisco. It would take a little less than an hour and a half for them to get there, time in which they would be prepping a game plan for once they got on the ground.

The moment they were in the air, Riley took the bag Cara offered her and retreated to the bathrooms. Mac looked over at his twin from his seat next to her. Cara gazed out the window at the Californian landscape below them, mind wandering to Kendrick. 

“You okay?” he asked quietly, drawing her attention back. She looked over at him. 

“I’m fine, Mac,” she said, giving him a small smile. “This one’s just personal.” 

Mac squeezed her hand softly. “For Nikki.”

“For Nikki,” Cara echoed, looking up as Riley exited the bathroom, this time without the orange jumpsuit on.

She sat down across from them and Jack joined a few moments later, arms laden from where he was raiding a snack cupboard after he was unsuccessful in his search at DXS.

“Alright, so here’s the game plan,” Mac said, leaning forward.

“No way he checked in under his real name,” Riley said as the group made their way through the lobby of the extravagant hotel. Dozens of people milled around the various levels of the lobby, all dressed in smart business wear.

“She’s right,” Jack said, walking behind Cara. “We don’t have time to search room by room.” 

“We’ll make him come to us.” Of course that was Mac’s plan.

“How are we gonna do that?” Riley asked. 

Mac stopped and turned to face the rest of them as he smiled. “Tinfoil.”

“Tinfoil?” Riley repeated, looking between Cara and Jack. “He’s kidding right?”

“Oh, my man never jokes about tinfoil,” Jack answered, completely serious. 

Mac and Jack disappeared into a supply closet while Riley and Cara stood by the door, keeping watch for people. 

“So,” Riley said. “Kendrick shot you and Mac?”

Cara nodded, casting her gaze around the various people and keeping an eye out as she answered with a simple, “Yep, right in the chest.”

“Damn,” was all Riley answered as she leaned against the railing beside Cara. 

A smile tugged at Cara’s lips as she turned to face Riley fully. “Three months ago, right here.” She tapped at the spot where the scar was. “Was in the hospital for almost a month.” 

“I’m sorry,” Riley said, studying the other woman. 

Cara shrugged, drawing in a shaky breath. “At least I’m alive, right?” 

Jack pulled them into the closet then as Mac placed a sheet of tin foil inside a bucket filled with what smelled like a combination of chemicals.

“This should set off the alarm,” Mac said as he lifted the bucket onto a stepstool below a smoke detector. “No fire, just smoke.” 

They watched as the smoke filtered up to the detector, each flinching as it started going off and caused the loud fire alarm to fill the air. They made their way back to the masses of flustered people in the lobby, glancing around. Mac and Cara ended up in the middle of the crowd next to a set of stairs while Jack and Riley patrolled the perimeter, each keeping an eye out for Kendrick.

“Please, everybody, proceed to the exits,” a hotel worker instructed. 

Cara looked over the railing and spotted Kendrick, slapping Mac in the arm to get his attention. Her brother looked over right as Kendrick took a step. Cara’s heart stopped and it was only the railing that held her up as her knees buckled and she heard Mac’s breathing stop. 

Nikki. 

Nikki was there. 

Nikki, her best friend.

Nikki, who was dead.

Nikki, who Cara had watched die...who Mac had said they’d had a funeral for…

Except she was standing right next to Kendrick looking frustrated at the fire alarm. She looked up at that moment...right at Cara and Mac. Her face dropped.

“Nikki?” Mac was just as surprised as Cara.

And then Nikki bolted down the stairs. 

Mac turned back and yelled, “Jack!” before both twins bolted down the stairs after her. 

“Jack!” Mac yelled for their friend to follow again. 

They chased Nikki through the hallways and through an alley door. Mac quickly took the lead, boots pounding as he sprinted, as Cara hadn’t yet gotten back into good enough shape for a chase. They dodged around trash cans and railings and vents in the narrow alley before making it onto the street. 

Mac skidded to a stop, Cara coming in behind him a few moments later as he yelled, “Nikki!” 

Cara was just able to catch a glimpse of Nikki before she ducked into a car. Kendrick shut the door behind her as he pulled a gun out, pointing it at the siblings. Mac shoved Cara to the side, pushing her into a run down the alley beside them as Kendrick began shooting. Cara’s heart was racing, questions about Nikki running through her head faster than she could comprehend. 

A chain link fence too tall to climb halted them in the alley and Cara bent over, hands on her knees as she gasped for air. She really should have focused more on running than kickboxing in her retraining. 

Mac kicked the fence before turning, gaze wandering around the alley. His eyes landed on a fire escape pulled up above street level as Kendrick caught up to them.

“Oi, MacGyvers,” he said, pointing the gun at them both. Cara straightened, raising her hands above her head and glancing at her brother. “Well, I guess this is the end of your silly game of hide-and-seek, MacGyver.” That last statement was directed at Mac only and it took everything in Cara’s power not to pull her brother behind her before Mac pulled something next to him.

The fire escape ladder came down, hitting Kendrick in the face and knocking him out right as Jack came running down the alley with his gun drawn. 

“You guys all right?” he asked. Mac took off back down the alley towards the street. “Mac? Mac, where you going?” 

Cara and Jack followed him back to the street.

“What are you looking for? It’s over, man. We got him,” Jack said, gesturing at the knocked-out man behind them.

Cara's throat was tight as she leaned against the brick wall and Mac responded, “No, it’s not. Nikki’s alive.”

Riley caught up with them then. 

“What do you mean Nikki’s alive?” Jack asked, confused.

“We saw her. She was with Kendrick. They’ve been in on this together,” Mac was yelling by the time he finished. Cara couldn’t even speak or figure out if the pain in her chest was from running too hard or the pain of realizing Nikki was alive and not on their side.

“Whoa, guys, time-out,” Riley interrupted. “Are you talking about the same dead Nikki? Your girlfriend Nikki?” 

They’d filled Riley in on the whole situation on the plane. 

“Yeah.” Mac nodded, exchanging a look with Jack.

“How is that possible?” Riley asked. 

“We’re about to find that out.” Jack cocked his gun, storming back down the alley to where Kendrick was still knocked out. By the time they’d gotten Kendrick into the back of the van and tied up properly, he was awake. 

Riley sat inside the van at her computer and Cara and Mac stood outside the back as Jack slugged Kendrick across the face from where he kneeled in the van next to him. “That’s for making us think Nikki was dead and for trying to kill my friends here.” 

“Where’s the virus?” Mac asked. Kendrick didn’t respond. They all shared a look before Jack grabbed a nail gun off the side of the van and shot a nail into the floor between Kendrick’s thighs.

“Oh, I got your attention now?” Jack asked, voice deadly. 

“Nikki has the virus. I don’t know where it is,” Kendrick finally said, glaring at them all.

“Because you’re a bad guy, I’m gonna reserve my right not to believe anything that you say,” Jack said, shooting another nail into the floor and making Kendrick jump. 

“Nikki wanted to meet the buyer alone. She thought it would be safer if we met up after the transaction,” Kendrick took a deep breath. “I swear.” 

“I swear? Really? Why do guys like you always try to convince guys like me that you’re honest?” Jack asked, shaking his head. “Hey, look at me. You’re not honest. That’s why you’ve got another tool between your legs right now.” 

“What did you do to get Nikki to cooperate?” Mac demanded. “What did you threaten her with?”

“I didn’t.”

“Nikki would never do this unless you had something on her,” Cara cut in, voice hard. Her best friend was the most selfless person she knew. 

“Look for a bank account in Prague in her mother’s name,” Kendrick said, looking between the twins. “You’ll find five million dollars in there.” 

Cara stepped back, clenching her fists to keep from swinging at him right there as Mac and Jack exchanged an understanding look. 

“When you shot her, the first round was a blank,” Jack said, filling in the gaps from that night. 

“She insisted we make her disappear after the transaction. It was non-negotiable.”

“And me? And Cara?” Mac asked quietly, no emotion in his tone though Cara could tell this was devastating her twin.

“She wanted you unhurt, but hey...she understood it might get messy, if necessary,” Kendrick smiled meanly at the two. 

Each word was like a blow to Cara’s heart as Mac faced Riley. “You got enough?”

“Every phoneme in the English language,” Riley affirmed. The interrogation had served a dual purpose. The first was to get information about Nikki. The second was to clone Kendrick’s voice.

“What did you do?” Kendrick was cut off and struggled as Jack slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth. 

Mac pulled a cell phone out of Kendrick’s pocket and tossed it to Riley. “Check the last call on that. It’s going to be Nikki.” 

“Eliza Pittsinger.” Riley said, scrolling through the phone. “I would have chosen Beyonce as an alias, but hey…”

“Call her,” Mac ordered as Riley tapped away at the computer. She put the phone on speaker as it dialed, ringing a few times before the line picked up. 

“We shouldn’t be talking right now,” Nikki’s voice came through. 

Riley typed quickly at the computer and Kendrick’s voice filtered out, “I took care of your friends. They’re not going to be bothering us anymore.” 

“Don’t call me again, I’ll see you in New York.” Nikki hung up. 

Riley shook her head. “Sorry, call was voice over IP, routed using TOR. No way to trace it.”

“There were planes in the background,” Cara said. “She’s at an airport.” 

Riley turned back to the computer. “I’ll look for cell towers at San Francisco International.” 

“No, no, she’s not at SFO,” Jack interrupted, shaking his head. “Those engines were too small to be commercial. I heard a Bell Ranger. I think we’re looking for a private airport, one that services planes and choppers.”

“Got something,” Riley tapped a few keys. “It’s in San Carlos, ten minutes from here.”

“Call Thornton,” Mac ordered. “Tell her to ground all airplanes in the area. We can’t let that virus leave the city.”

They all piled into the van, peeling out of the alley and racing towards the airport. Jack and Mac were in the front seats as Riley dialed Thornton and Cara sat across from Kendrick, glaring at him. 

“Hang on,” Jack called, busting through the security gates leading onto the runway at the airport. The van skidded to a halt and Cara jolted to the front of the van as Mac stepped out.

“Mac!” she warned, all their eyes locked on the retreating plane.

“Yeah, I see it,” Mac said as he took off running. 

“Where’s Mr. Wizard going?” Riley asked, leaning out of the van. 

“I think he’s going to stop that thing,” Jack answered as Mac sprinted across the tarmac towards the plane. 

Cara watched her brother, hands gripping Riley’s seat in front of her tightly, as Riley asked, “How’s he going to stop an airplane?”

Mac jumped onto a panel under the plane right as it took off from the ground. Cara’s heart dropped as the plane climbed into the sky with Mac dangling from underneath it. 

“Oh my god, oh my god.” Jack covered her hand with his own as her gaze remained locked on her brother. The plane got too far out of sight for them to see Mac anymore but still Cara couldn’t look away.

There was a collective sigh of relief as suddenly the plane turned around and started descending back towards the runway. Nothing had seemed to fall from the plane and Cara relaxed slightly as they realized Mac had done something to make it turn around.

“Congratulations,” Riley said to Jack as they all climbed out of the van. “Your friend just beat you in the mad dog crazy department.”

“I’m glad you’re talking to me again.” Jack stopped beside Riley as the plane approached the runway. 

“Don’t get cocky,” Riley said. “You guys are the only others here.” 

“Good point.” 

The plane landed and Cara was sprinting towards it before she saw her brother roll out from the landing gear hatch. Jack had his gun pulled by the time they all got to the door of the plane.

“Drop the gun, Nikki,” Jack ordered as he stepped onto the plane, Mac, Cara, and Riley right behind him. “Now! Or I swear to god I will put one in you for real this time.”

Nikki was standing right in front of them, gun pointed, and Cara’s heart was breaking all over again. Mac pushed in front of Jack.

“You want to shoot him, you’re gonna have to go through me,” he said. It was all Cara could to do remain standing. She couldn’t even trust that Nikki wouldn’t shoot Mac anymore. “Go ahead. You already had me killed once.” Mac stepped so close that the gun was pressed against his neck and Jack had an arm out to stop Cara from lunging forward. 

Nikki dropped the gun and Mac snatched it, immediately passing it back to Jack as he faced her again. “Where’s the virus?”

She didn’t respond and Mac started patting her down, sighing as he turned her around to check the back. “Where is it?” 

Nikki remained silent and Cara shook her head, unable to look at her as Mac turned. “Tear this place apart.” 

“You got it,” Jack said as he and Riley started checking the plane. Cara knew she should be looking with them but she slumped against the wall, an ear trained on her brother while she struggled with all the conflicting thoughts in her own head. 

“Was everything a lie?” Mac demanded. 

“Not us,” Cara heard Nikki reply. 

“Then why?” Mac huffed. “I thought you died trying to do something good.” 

“You were always the hero, Mac,” was all Nikki said. “Not me.” 

“It’s not here, is it?” Cara asked, not looking away from the spot on the wall as Mac and Nikki looked at her. She couldn’t look Nikki in the eye...not after everything...but she couldn’t stomach listening to her and Mac’s conversation any longer. 

Mac’s face shifted into realization as he looked at Jack and Riley. “Guys, stop looking. She already sold it.” 

Cara stalked off the plane and out onto the tarmac, watching as a tactical team finally arrived. Her brother and the others followed a few seconds later and Riley immediately pulled out her laptop and established a feed with Thornton. Cara joined them around the computer. She knew she should be asking her brother how he was doing with all of this but that time would come later. Right now was business.

“So, Nikki’s alive. Benjamin Chen is in the wind and we don’t know when or where he’s gonna unleash that virus,” Thornton recapped. 

“I know it looks bad,” Jack started before getting interrupted by their boss.

“Bad?! Jack, bad is when you accidentally run over your neighbor’s dog. This is a damn catastrophe of biblical proportions.”

“It’s here. The target’s San Francisco,” Mac interrupted, glancing between them all before storming over to where Nikki was being led towards a car by an FBI agent. “Chen’s planning on releasing the virus here, isn’t he?” 

“You’re wrong,” Nikki said, squaring off. “It’s Tokyo.” 

“Oh, you’re lying,” Mac scoffed. “Eliza A. Pittsinger. I saw it on Kendrick’s phone but I didn’t realize it until now. Pittsinger wrote a poem in 1907 on the anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake. Over 3,000 people died in the fires.”

“Sometimes a purge is necessary to fix what’s broken,” Nikki answered. Cara shook her head, jaw tight. 

“Don’t pretend this was about ideology,” Mac shot back. “You did this for a payday.” 

“Mac, did you ever ask yourself why our government wants that weapon? What are they planning on doing with it?” Nikki asked, getting up in Mac’s face, voice angry.

“We’re running out of time here, Mac,” Jack interrupted. 

“Even if you find it, the people I work for will stop at nothing to get it back,” Nikki shot back. 

“Well we’ll see about that, won’t me,” Jack smiled. 

“No more games. Where’s Chen?” Cara demanded as she stalked towards Nikki. 

“You guys should leave,” was all she said in return as she looked between the twins.

“Well, that’s not gonna happen,” Mac chuckled. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you. So, Chen will release the virus here, then we’ll all die. So what’s it gonna be?” 

Nikki cracked. The moment she gave up Chen was in a truck driving towards San Francisco, Cara was sprinting towards the helicopter after Jack, Mac right on her heels.

“There it is! The truck Nikki said Chen was driving!” Cara pointed at the green, heavy truck rolling down the highway. 

Jack pulled the helicopter alongside it and Mac slid open the side door, jumping onto the roof of the truck before Cara could even ask what he was planning. 

“Mac!” she yelled, angry as she watched her brother cut through the top of the canvas roof and fall into the back. 

“Uh, guys, we got a problem,” Cara heard Mac say over their comms. 

“What kind of problem?” Jack asked through his headset.

“The kind you don’t want to be anywhere near. Chen’s using an IED to send virus airborne,” Mac relayed. “It’ll kill millions.”

“Well, can you stop it?” It was a logical question from Jack, seeing as Mac had diffused bombs for years in the army.

“I don’t know,” Mac admitted. “You should probably take Cara and get out of here, though.”

“Ah, you know I’m not gonna do that even if your sister would let me leave you,” Jack said, keeping the helicopter steady with the truck. “If you go kaboom, we go kaboom. This is what the army trained you for. You can do this in your sleep.”

“Yeah, okay, I can do without the pep talk right now.” Mac’s voice sounded strained. 

“Okay, that’s cool, just trying to do my part, you know.” Cara snorted. At least Jack was bringing his sense of humor to the death.

Cara watched as a man climbed out of the passenger door.

“Great,” Mac’s frustrated voice came through.

“Well that didn’t sound very encouraging,” Cara answered. 

“You know how they always say you have to choose between cutting the red wire and the blue wire?” Mac asked. “Well, I’ve got about twelve wires down here and they’re all green.” 

“Well, you better pick one quick Mac. Someone’s coming down the chimney, and it ain’t Santa Claus” Jack warned as the man climbed onto the hood and then onto the roof of the truck, disappearing into the hole Mac had cut in the roof. 

Cara tensed, hearing sounds of a fight coming through Mac’s comms.

“Hey, Mac!” she yelled, grabbing Jack’s gun from his holster.

“Yeah I’m a little busy right now,” Mac managed to reply.

“Catch!” Cara ordered, dropping the gun out the side of the helicopter and into the hole on the roof of the truck. Moments later, the man fell out the back of the truck, rolling a few feet before stopping and being left behind. 

“That’s not exactly what I had in mind but,” she trailed off.

“Thanks,” Mac said through the comms, sounding out of breath. 

“Save it for happy hour,” Jack ordered. “You still have work to do. Mac, talk to us!”

“Stopping the bomb is out of the question,” Mac said. 

“Then get the virus and get out of there,” Cara shot back, half dangling out of the helicopter while trying to get eyes on her twin. 

“Mac?” Jack asked as a rapid beeping sounded through the comms.

“I got it.” Cara breathed a sigh of relief when her twin said that.

“Good, now jump!” Jack ordered.

“I can’t risk shattering the container and releasing the virus.” 

“Mac, I swear to god if you don’t get away from that bomb before it goes off I’m going to kill you,” Cara threatened, still keeping her eyes locked on the little glimpses of her brother she could see through the roof hole.

Fifteen seconds later, she watched as Mac parachuted away from the truck, landing on the other side of the road with a yell where he almost got run over by a car. Jack pulled back from the truck, swinging the copter around, and Cara watched as the back of the truck exploded just seconds later, coming to a halt in the road not long after where it exploded a second time, this one much larger and sending shrapnel shooting across the highway. 

Jack landed the chopper and Cara jumped out the moment it was down, not even waiting for their friend as she sprinted across the grassy median towards where her brother laid sprawled on the asphalt. 

“Mac!” Sirens sounded behind her as an entire precinct's worth of police showed up at the blast site. She didn’t care, though, as she reached her brother. Jack was only a few moments behind. “You all right?” 

Mac sat up slowly as she skidded to a halt beside him. 

“You okay?” Jack asked as Mac took Cara’s hand and she pulled him up. 

“Yeah,” Mac said, breathing hard.

Jack laughed, doing a little jump. “My man, saving the world in style! Good job brother.” He slapped Mac’s hand as Cara punched Mac in the shoulder.

“You ever do something so idiotic again and I swear I’ll kill you myself,” she threatened, glaring up at her twin. 

“Mhm, I’ve heard that before,” Mac said, pulling her into a hug. It took everything Cara had to not start shaking as she came down from the adrenaline high. It had been a long day with a lot of emotions. 

“It’s not even a new threat anymore, C,” Jack added, shaking his head. 

Men in hazmat suits ran over to them and Mac gladly handed off the virus container, keeping his free arm wrapped around his sister’s shoulders (mostly because he was feeling very sore from that landing). 

Back at the house, Cara splashed her face off in the bathroom sink. They’d been home for less than twenty minutes and, while Cara didn’t have enough time to shower before the others showed up, she did need to at least take a moment alone. 

She started at her reflection. Sharp cheekbones that were starting to fade as her cheeks filled back in after losing so much weight when she got injured. A scratch above her eyebrow from their chase after Nikki in the hotel. And her eyes...drained and exhausted. Physically and emotionally.

Three months of thinking her best friend was dead. It had been hard enough on them, but Cara was starting to heal. Now? After finding out that Nikki had betrayed them and been the reason they’d almost died? Cara knew she should have been raging and crying and feeling something. But now all she felt was exhaustion. 

Cara changed into a pair of sweats and long sleeve t-shirt, feeling cold despite the sunny day, before walking back out to where Mac sat. He was sitting there, tossing pictures of himself and Nikki into the fire and just...staring.

“Angus,” Cara sighed as she sat next to him, dropping an arm around his back and wrapping the other one around him in a hug. She would be strong..for him, for her brother who’d taken care of her the past three months and their entire lives. “I’m so sorry.” 

He didn’t even get the chance to respond before Jack’s voice came filtering through the air, drawing both of their attention. “Mac? Cara? Are you busy, kemosabe?” 

“I told him to knock,” Riley said, sighing, as Bozer came walking out of the house as well.

“We’re family. Family don’t knock,” Jack said as he made his way over to the deck. “Am I right, Bozer?”

“Jackie boy, what’s happening, man?” Bozer greeted, going in for a hug with Jack. “I haven’t seen my bestie in awhile.” 

“Ah, we’re gonna change that,” Jack said as Riley walked over next to the twins.

“You look good, son,” Bozer answered, though he then waved Jack out of the way and walked past him towards Riley, who just gave him a look. “Uh, not as good as her, though. Excu-excuse me. Now, who is this little ingenue?” 

“Yeah, Riley meet Bozer,” Jack introduced. “Bozer meet off-limits.”

“Riley just joined our, um, I.T. department a week ago,” Cara said, turning to face them, shrugging at Mac as she lied. 

“Cutie,” Bozer greeted as he took off his paper work hat. “You do any acting? I’d love to put you in my movie?”

“Baller, you better get to work. Those fries won’t cook themselves,” Riley shot back, gesturing at his hat.

Bozer laughed. “Oh, yeah. This is gonna be fun. All right, I’ll catch you all think tank geeks later. And you, Jack!” 

“So, check it out,” Jack said, pulling out a beer and stepping down next to the firepit and gestured at Riley. “Boss lady said we can keep this little rascal here.”

“Can you not refer to me like I was a pet?” Riley shook her head.

“Remember, you’re still on probation, little lady.” Jack offered her a bottle of beer.

“Yeah, thank you for reminding me for the sixth time in the last half hour.” Riley took the beer and walked past Cara who was slowly nursing her own. 

“You’re welcome.” Jack slid his attention to Mac and put a hand on his shoulder. “You doing alright there pal?” 

Mac chuckled. “I will be.” 

Riley dropped down beside Cara, looking across at Mac. “First of all, I just, I wanted to thank you.” 

“You’re welcome,” Mac answered, smiling softly. 

“No, seriously, you said if I did the right thing, I’d be thanking you later.” Riley gestured vaguely around them. “And this is later. So...thanks.” 

Riley tapped her bottle against Mac’s before holding up a necklace. “Second, what’s this?”

“I think you’ve asked enough questions for now, right?” Jack cut in as Mac took the necklace and studied it.

“This we got in Cairo.”

“You were in Cairo?” 

“No,” Jack said at the same time Mac answered, “Yeah.”

“Can’t wait to hear that story,” Riley laughed.

“Good luck,” Cara snorted, taking a sip of her beer. “I’ve been waiting on that story for years now.”

“Guys, Cairo can wait,” Thornton’s voice rang through the house. It took everything in Cara not to roll her eyes at the fact their boss showed up unannounced...again. 

“Oh, Director Thornton,” Jack greeted, looking like he’d gotten his hand caught in the cookie jar. “What are you doing here?”

“As of 24:00 hours, we’re shutting down DXS.” Thornton sat down on the other side of Riley as they all shared a look. “What Nikki did compromised our cover operation, so we’re folding up the tent and moving all think tank personnel, tactical support, and your team to a new location. Same job, new name. And you get to pick it.” 

Cara leaned back, resting her palms on the deck behind her for support as she mused over the news. A new name...there were so many possibilities. 

“I like the Three Amigos,” Jack supplied.

“That means three guys,” Riley shot back. 

“Uh, you should brush up on your Spanish,” Jack said, pointing at Riley. “My second choice...Thunder Stallions.”

Cara snorted, shaking her head, as Thornton hummed.

“Phoenix,” Mac said. 

“Come on, bro,” Jack said. “We don’t want to name our new super crew after a bird.” 

“Not just any bird,” Mac defended. “In ancient mythology, the Phoenix rose from the ashes stronger than it ever was. That’s us.”

Cara smiled softly as Riley said, “I like it.” 

“Me too,” Thornton agreed. 

Riley raised her bottle. “To the Phoenix.” 

“Foundation,” Mac added as he clinked glasses with them all. 

Hours later, after everyone had left and Bozer was back home from work and the three of them had all retreated to their own rooms, Cara let out a long breath. She pulled off her clothes methodically, any lightness she had felt with the others around long gone now that she was alone with her thoughts and the events of the day. The shower was just a few degrees below scalding when she walked in, turning to get her hair wet. 

She stood there and her knees just...buckled. She caught herself on her hands, kneeling on the tile floor. She could feel everything welling up, just ready to burst. Yet it didn’t come. And all she could do was turn to sit with her knees to her chest and stare at the water slapping onto the tile. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: And here's chapter 2! This was was a lot longer than I thought it would be but I didn't want to shorten it or leave out important scenes just to cut a few words. Are we okay with longer chapters? I was originally planning 1 episode per chapter but might have to make it 1 episode over 2 chapters? Either way, please leave a review if you liked it! Have a lovely weekend 3 - Lauren


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